A close-up look at NYC education policy, politics,and the people who have been, are now, or will be affected by acts of corruption and fraud. ATR CONNECT assists individuals who suddenly find themselves in the ATR ("Absent Teacher Reserve") pool and are the "new" rubber roomers, and re-assigned. The terms "rubber room" and "ATR" mean that you or any person has been targeted for removal from your job. A "Rubber Room" is not a place, but a process.

Sunday, October 29, 2017

The inspector general for Chicago Public Schools found that dozens of employees who were barred from the district found working in new jobs at city charter and contract schools last year. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

New York City is not the only place that teachers are thrown out of their jobs, tarred and feathered, and placed on the "Do Not Hire" ("problem code") list.

Anyone charged with 3020-a, and anyone discontinued or terminated, whether tenured or not, is immediately placed onto a "problem code" - unless you are a VIP like Santiago Taveras, Carmen Farina or other people at their 'untouchable' level.

The UFT is not willing to end this blacklist. Some representatives say it does not exist. But it does, and it is, in my non-lawyer opinion, a libelous label used to back up false or unproven charges.

Indeed, when I worked for the UFT from 2007-2010, and my office was right next to Amy Arundel's office, I used to get calls all the time from members who wanted to know whether or not they were on this list, and I would walk next door and ask Amy, who would look up their file, and then she would tell me yes or no.

The problem code is a red flag put onto your file number to alert anyone that your fingerprints have been tagged as not cleared to work for the DOE or any vendors.

When a potential employer calls up the Department, and they ask about you and say that they are thinking of hiring you, all the DOE is permitted to say is how many years you worked for them. But seldom do they stop there. They go on to say that your file has a "Problem code".

Try it. Have a friend call DOE Human Resources and ask if you can be hired.

Anyway, if you are on the problem code, you must try to get off of it. What you need to do is, contact the Office of Personnel Investigations (OPI) at 65 Court Street, and ask for an appointment to discuss clearing your fingerprints. Bring someone with you who can support what you are saying - a teacher or educator who knows your skills and character is best.

At this meeting make an argument as to why you must have this red flag removed from your employee profile. Get the person's name and email address with whom you spoke, and email them what your argument was, after the meeting. Then wait for the decision. When you get the OPI decision, than you may file an Article 78 to overturn it, and then you can also sue the DOE if you have filed a Notice of Claim.

More than 160 Chicago Public Schools employees who were barred from the district because of alleged abuse, misconduct or poor performance were found working in new jobs at city charter and contract schools last year, according to a report from the district’s inspector general.

The list included three workers who were fired or resigned and blocked from being re-hired at CPS because of sexual abuse accusations, according to the report, which was released Tuesday. Twenty-two were put on a “Do Not Hire” list “due to improper corporal punishment or physical abuse of students,” according to the report.

Nearly 80 others were blocked from returning to the district due to incompetence or violating school rules. That included a list of probationary teachers who were blocked from future employment at CPS because of poor performance.

The 163 unidentified employees — 98 of them teachers — represented a small fraction of the workforce at the city’s publicly funded but independently operated charter and contract schools, the reported noted.

But Inspector General Nicholas Schuler’s office also found that CPS had no system for those schools to determine if their potential employees had been blacklisted by CPS with the “Do Not Hire” designation. Despite preliminary steps taken to fix the problem, the IG’s office said CPS has not finalized a policy on how to handle such situations.

The report did not name schools that hired the former district employees. Officials from three of the city’s largest charter school operators either declined to comment on Schuler’s report or said their schools conduct criminal background checks but don’t have access to CPS’ list of prohibited employees.

Kelley Quinn, spokeswoman for the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, said in a statement that “charter schools have not had access to the Do Not Hire list, but are required to run independent background checks for all staff, which they have done.”

“We also look forward to working with the district to ensure charter public schools have timely access to the Do Not Hire list in the future.” Quinn said.

A district spokesman said CPS conducts background checks for more than half of all charter and contract operators. In those cases, job candidates agree to share whether they’re blocked from working at CPS.

Schuler’s office said CPS is “developing a protocol” for alerting independently run schools of job candidates who are prohibited from working in the district. The IG said CPS also hopes to cover current charter and contract school employees as well.

It’s not clear how many employees on the Do Not Hire list are still on the job at charters or contract schools. The IG’s office reached its conclusions after reviewing a list of charter and contract school employees from last winter.

The three school workers accused of sex abuse are no longer working at the charters that hired them, the IG said.

“The charter data that we asked for was effective in December of last year,” Schuler said in an interview. “It’s a snapshot date in December of last year. Therefore, we’re unable to say exactly how many of these people in the (group of) 163 are still at the charters today.”

One challenge, Schuler noted, is that the law allows charter schools “considerable latitude” on their hiring decisions.

State law prohibits schools from hiring candidates who have been convicted of certain criminal offenses. CPS also elects to bar a range of other offenders from being hired, though charter schools are not required to follow suit.

“Although the Board decides not to hire those individuals, it does not have a statutory basis to require charter schools to defer to the Board’s conclusions about the risks presented by those individuals,” Schuler’s office said.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Finally, an article pops up that does not generalize about how awful all ATRs are. This is good.

The NYC Education Department employees currently in the Absent Teacher Reserve pool or "ATR" list are, truth be told, a mixture of the good, the bad, and the ugly. The major media such as the New York Times, NY POST, and NY Daily News have published stories recently which are misleading and factually wrong. Not all ATRs are the scum of the education system's rejects, far from it. Reporters writing only about the "bad" ATRs who have won their right to continue teaching due to strange circumstances are missing the most important point. The point omitted is that the NYC Department of Education indicts anyone who someone important doesn't like, without consequences. There is no accountability for the wrongful, bad faith actions of a few mean-spirited educators/administrators who use their positions of power to destroy the lives of people who they don't like or dont want to pay for. As one DOE Attorney told me, "Give me some money and I can indict anyone".

In the article I am re-posting from The Chief dated October23, 2017, Karen Sklaire, Aixa Rodriguez, and Gina Trent are not in the ATR pool for misconduct, but for other reasons. They deserve to be given permanent positions in their content areas of expertise. But not all ATRs are as good as these three women. I will point out some examples of the "bad" ATRs in a future post.

It’s the Scarlet Letter of teaching,” Karen Sklaire, a theater Teacher, said of being placed in the Absent Teacher Reserve pool.

In November, the Department of Education will move 400 Teachers from the Absent Teacher Reserve into schools. The one-year provisional placements will be based on vacancies that existed on Oct. 16, and will be made permanent if the Teachers earn an Effective rating or higher from their supervisors.

Won’t Go To ‘Renewals’

The plan has been panned by pro-charter-school groups, including StudentsFirstNY, which rallied worried parents at City Hall Oct. 12. That same day, Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña announced that Teachers from the reserve pool would not be placed in struggling schools that were part of the city’s Renewal program.

A handful of Principals spoke out about their concerns with the Teachers in a recent New York Times article, which was headlined “Caught Sleeping or Worse, Troubled Teachers Will Return to New York Classrooms.”

“I cried when I saw the article,” Ms. Sklaire said.

During her time at a Manhattan elementary school, she set up a program for students to see Broadway shows, and in 2015, won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Honor for her work in thea­ter and human-rights education. But Ms. Sklaire was excessed in June because there weren’t enough students enrolled in the drama program. The school’s population was shrinking as well.

Aixa Rodriguez

Looking for work as an ATR is “demoralizing,” said Aixa Rodriguez, who was placed in the pool after her school, Foreign Language Academy of Global Studies, closed in 2016.

Over the years, funding for the school decreased along with its enrollment, which dropped from 388 students in 2009 to 99 students in its last year.

Ms. Rodriguez said that she’s learned to carry a printout of the Highly Effective rating she earned from her supervisors when she goes to hiring fairs. “The first thing you’re asked is, ‘you’re an ATR?’ You can hear them dismiss you,” she said. Ms. Rod­ri­guez was placed provisionally at a high school last year.

‘What Did You Do?’

While the majority in the pool—74 percent—earned a Highly Effective, Effective, or Satisfactory rating in their most-recent year in the classroom, the stigma of being an ATR hurts even Teachers who perform well on the job.

“I don’t identify myself as an ATR immediately,” said Ms. Sklaire, who has earned Highly Effective and Effective ratings throughout her 15 years teaching. “Because you can see it in people’s faces: they’re thinking ‘Oh God, what did you do?’”

Like Ms. Rodriguez, most Teachers entered the pool because of a school closing or phase-out (38 percent), or a budget reduction or declining student enrollment (30 percent). The other 32 percent ended up in the pool following a legal or disciplinary case, including cases in which the charges against them were determined to be unfounded.

The pool has shrunk from 1,131 Teachers in 2014 to 822 thanks to buyouts, including one in June granting Teachers who left the system $50,000. Randy Asher, who was hired to shrink the reserve back in January, said that all Teachers in the pool would be considered in filling vacancies.

“We have full discretion on which Teachers we match to vacancies, and we have discretion not to match ATR Teachers to vacancies based on their work history and performance,” he said. “We’ll look at it case-by-case.”

Hiding Openings?

But some of the Teachers in the pool are skeptical of that plan.

Ms. Sklaire said she’d heard from a higher-up that Principals were hiding vacancies. She said she would hear about a position, then check the open-market and it wasn’t there.

For Ms. Rodriguez, who taught ESL for the city for 12 years, “there were no vacancies for ESL Teachers in The Bronx,” she said.

ESL Teachers are in high demand because English-language learners are underserved: only a third graduate on time. About a quarter of the city’s English-language students are in The Bronx. “Either that shortage area dried up really quickly, or positions are being hidden,” she said.

Uncertain Future

Then there are worries about what will happen to permanently hired ATR Teach­ers once the DOE subsidy for their salaries is gone. During the past school year, the DOE either subsidized half of the costs for such Teachers the first year and 25 percent the next, or the full cost of the Teacher’s salary for the school year.

But the schools must pay the Teachers’ full salaries after that.

Gina Trent

Gina Trent, an English Teacher who has been in the ATR pool for 10 years after being excessed from a transfer school, said that when she and other ATR Teachers found out they’ll be permanently placed if they receive Effective ratings or higher, “we all knew the Principals would find a way to give us less than an Effective rating.”

Part of the problem is that the average Teacher in the ATR has taught for 18 years, earning $94,000, according to the DOE—far from a starting salary. Since 2007, the city has used “Fair Student Funding” to determine how much money schools get (including for hiring new Teachers) based on how many students they have, and granted Principals control over hiring.

Earning Top Pay

“I’ve never met a young ATR,” Ms. Trent said. “Almost all of them are extremely competent and all of them are at the top of the salary scale.”

Principals have historically exaggerated the impact on their school budget of hiring someone from the ATR pool, a spokesperson for the United Federation of Teachers explained. The UFT has advocated for the DOE to charge schools a citywide average salary for each Teacher, which so far it has not agreed to do, she said.

Ms. Rodriguez said that in addition to being over 40, most people in the pool are “brown.”

“There are a lot of whistleblowers in the pool, too,” she said, citing Peter Maliarakis, who settled with the city in 2015 after he complained about grades being changed and was charged with insubordination.

Another Teacher she named, Kathy Perez, was placed into the pool after being assaulted twice at M.S. 72 in Queens. She was trampled by disorderly students in 2012, then shoved to the floor in 2013, and underwent back and knee surgeries. She won a $125,000 lawsuit against the DOE for her on-duty injuries last year.

The tenured Literary Specialist, who has taught for 21 years and entered the pool in 2014, said that she’s been floating from school to school in her district.

“Fair Student Funding needs to go,” she said. “That whole concept is absurd. I get paid whether I’m in a classroom or I’m floating around. So for a Principal to say ‘I can’t afford you’ is ridiculous. It forces Principals to hire cheap Teachers.”

Ms. Trent added that the reasoning behind the backlash against ATR Teachers is flawed. “Most of the backlash is parents saying they don’t want their kids to get stuck with a bad Teacher, but ATRs are more-experienced Teachers. Studies have shown more-experienced Teachers are generally more effective,” she said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke in 2015 with Automotive High School Principal Caterina Lafergola, who later left the school. Automotive is one of eight schools where teachers have had to reapply for their jobs in recent years.Now, teachers at two more schools will have to do the same. (Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

In a bid to jumpstart stalled turnaround efforts, the entire staffs at two troubled high schools will have to reapply for their jobs — an aggressive intervention that in the past has resulted in major staff shake-ups.

The teachers, guidance counselors, social workers and paraprofessionals at Flushing High School in Queens and DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx will have to re-interview for their positions beginning next spring, education department officials said Thursday, the same day that staffers learned of the plan. Meanwhile, Flushing Principal Tyee Chin, who has clashed bitterly with teachers there, has been ousted; his replacement will take over Friday, officials said. (DeWitt Clinton’s principal will stay on.)

Both schools are part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signature “Renewal” program for low-performing schools, but have struggled to hit their improvement targets. They are also under state pressure to make significant gains or face consequences, leading to speculation that the rehiring is meant partly to buy the city more time before the state intervenes. (Last year, Flushing was the only school out of two-dozen on a state list of low-achieving city schools not to meet its turnaround goals.)

“Having a strong leader and the right team of teachers is essential to a successful school,” Chancellor Carmen Fariña said in a statement, “and this re-staffing process is the necessary next step in the work to turnaround these schools.”

The staffing change stems from an agreement between the de Blasio administration and the city teachers union, who have agreed to the same process for eight other schools since 2014. Among the six schools that went through the process last year, nearly half of the staff members left — either because they were not rehired or they chose not to reapply.

As part of the deal, hiring decisions will be made by committees at each school comprised of the principals and an equal number of union and city appointees. Unlike when former Mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to overhaul bottom-ranked schools by replacing their principals and at least half of their teachers, these committees can choose to hire as many or as few of the current teachers as they choose.

In the past, the city has placed teachers who were not retained through the rehiring process in other schools — a move that drew criticism for overriding principals’ authority to choose their own staffs. City officials would not provide details about the arrangement for Flushing or Clinton other than to say that the education department would help teachers who left the schools find new placements.

The education department “will work with each teacher to ensure they have a year-long position at a school next year,” spokesman Michael Aciman said in an email.

Both high schools have already endured a destabilizing amount of turnover: Since 2013, more than half the teachers at both schools have left, according to the teachers union. And Flushing’s incoming principal, Ignazio Accardi, an official in the department’s Renewal office, is the sixth in six years.

The school’s outgoing principal, Tyee Chin, had a brief and troubled tenure.

Tyree Chin

Last year — his first on the job —he wrote a letter to his staff describing a toxic environment that he called “the Hunger Games for principals,” where he said some teachers keep up a “war cry” for a new leader. Meanwhile, the teachers union lodged a discrimination complaint against Chin with a state board, alleging that he threatened to press “racism and harassment” charges against the school’s union representative simply for carrying out her duties, said United Federation of Teachers Vice President of High Schools Janella Hinds.

Janella Hinds

“Principal Chin came in with an attitude that wasn’t collaborative or supportive,” Hinds said. “We’re dealing with a school community that has had a long list of principals who were not collaborative.”

In an email, Chin disputed the union representative’s allegations and said many staffers did not want him to leave.

“Only a small number of teachers were unhappy with my leadership because they were held to a higher expectations [sic] and or were investigated for inappropriate actions,” he said. “I have received many emails from staff telling me they are very sorry and that it was a pleasure having me as their principal.”

Chin’s departure comes after DeWitt Clinton’s previous principal, Santiago Taveras, who also sparred with teachers, was removed last year after city investigators found he had changed student grades. He was replaced by Pierre Orbe, who will remain in his position.

Santiago Taveras

The education department will host recruitment events during the spring and summer to bring in teacher applicants, who will be screened by the schools’ staffing committees, officials said.

However, it may be difficult to find seasoned teachers willing to take on such tough assignments.

When the teachers at Brooklyn’s long-struggling Automotive High School were forced to reapply for their jobs in 2015, the majority left. Many of their replacements were rookies, said then-principal Caterina Lafergola.

“Many of the schools that are going through the rehiring have a stigma attached to them,” she said last year. “It’s very hard to recruit strong candidates.”

Not long after, Lafergola left the school, too.

Caterina LaFergola

Update: This story has been updated to include a response from the outgoing principal of Flushing High School, Tyee Chin.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

I keep hoping that some major media will report on the ATR situation correctly. Unfortunately this hasn't happened.

The title of the article in the New York Times on Friday October 13, 2017, "Caught Sleeping or Worse, Troubled Teachers Will Return to New York Classrooms" has, imbedded in it, the bias of the Times and the reporter in the words "Troubled Teachers".

You know the article is about how ALL teachers in the ATR pool are tarnished in some way. ALL teachers in the ATR pool are damaged goods.

Randy Asher, new Department of Education ATR Administrator

The truth of the matter is, in my opinion, that New York City is dealing with a "troubled" system that labels ALL teachers who are misplaced from their classrooms for any number of reasons, as "bad", "ineffective", "mentally deranged", "criminals", etc. in order to remove ALL of these newly minted alleged "misfits" from the payroll of a school where the administration doesn't like, or cannot afford, the teacher/Guidance Counselor/secretary or staff member.

Reporters for most newspapers like catchy headlines and stories that anger, frustrate, or get under the skin of the reader. We get that. But fake news brings alarm on the part of readers, and that's where the NY Times has gone wrong in the article posted below.

We, the readers, are supposed to believe that ALL ATRs are "bad" teachers in some way. There is no truth to this. I personally know excellent educators and DOE employees who have become ATRs for no reason relating to their pedagogical skills or to any misconduct. Jealousy, exposure of wrong-doing and abuse of students by administrators, high salaries, all play into the formula for preferring charges pursuant to Education Law 3020-a. The process is seriously out of whack and should - no must - be changed so that the excellent, senior, expensive but effective teacher/employee can continue to give their expertise to students, and not fear sudden re-assignment, 3020-a charges, as well as ridicule by parents, students and administrators who read a newspaper or watch the evening news.

One of the teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve held his last permanent job at P.S. 157 in the Bronx. Among
other things, he was caught sleeping when he was supposed to be helping with dismissal.

Francis Blake has not held a permanent position in a New York City public school in at least five years. At his last job, in a Bronx elementary school, records show he was disciplined for incompetence, insubordination and neglect of duties — he had been caught sleeping in a classroom when he was supposed to be helping with dismissal.

Felicia Alterescu, a special-education teacher, has been without a permanent post since 2010, despite high demand for special education teachers. According to records, in addition to getting a string of unsatisfactory ratings, she was disciplined for calling in sick when she actually went to a family reunion. She also did not tell the Education Department that she had been arrested on harassment charges.

This month, Mr. Blake, Ms. Alterescu and hundreds of other teachers who are part of a pool known as the Absent Teacher Reserve could be permanently back in classrooms, as the city’s Education Department places them in jobs at city schools.

The reserve is essentially a parking lot for staff members who have lost their positions, some because of school closings and budget cuts, others because of disciplinary problems, but cannot be fired. It grew significantly as a result of a 2005 deal between the Bloomberg administration, which wanted to give principals control over hiring, and the teachers’ union. Since then, the union has fiercely protected the jobs of teachers in the reserve, resisting attempts to put a time limit on how long a teacher can remain there.

Until now, the teachers in the reserve have rotated through schools for a month at a time, serving as substitutes or, in some cases, sitting in the teachers’ lounge.

The salaries for those in the reserve cost the Education Department more than $150 million this past school year — enough to put an extra social worker or guidance counselor in nearly every school. The city says it cannot keep spending that much for teachers without permanent jobs. As of Oct. 15, if a school has an opening, a reserve teacher may be placed in it. Up to 400 teachers, roughly half the number in the pool at the end of the last school year, are expected to be put into vacancies. They will have a year to prove their abilities, after which the city will consider taking measures to dismiss them if they don’t measure up.

“The A.T.R. has been wasteful for 12 years,” said Olivia Lapeyrolerie, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio. “For the first time, there’s a common-sense strategy to get A.T.R. teachers who make the grade into permanent positions, and to hold them accountable if they don’t.” She added that the de Blasio administration had cut the size of the reserve by 27 percent through buyouts and other measures.

‘A Vicious Cycle’

Critics of the plan say that it is likely to put incompetent teachers in struggling, high-poverty schools, which have the most difficulty filling jobs.

“It’s a vicious cycle,” said Dr. Bernard Gassaway, a former New York City principal and superintendent. “If you have students who are challenged, and you have teachers who are challenged, you can’t have positive results come out of that.” He said the department would send the worst teachers to schools that would offer “the least amount of resistance,” because they had inexperienced principals and little parental involvement.

The Education Department originally said that teachers from the reserve might be placed in schools that are part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Renewal program, in which the city is spending more than $500 million to turn around failing schools, but this week said that would not happen.

As of Oct. 4, schools listed approximately 800 teacher vacancies, according to an Education Department spokesman, though that might not reflect the exact number of jobs available; he said he could not give a breakdown of where the vacancies were.

In a system in which only 1 percent of teachers earn the lowest possible ratings, of ineffective or unsatisfactory, 12 percent of the teachers who were in the Absent Teacher Reserve at the end of the last school year had received one of those ratings in 2015-16.

Nearly 40 percent worked in schools that were closed for poor performance. Another 30 percent were “excessed” from their positions because of budget cuts or because the number of students enrolled at their schools fell. Principals are sometimes forced to let go of teachers they would like to keep for those reasons, but they can also use them as a way to get rid of low performers. The rest landed in the pool because of legal or disciplinary charges.

Randy Asher

Troubling Histories

As of last spring, roughly a quarter of the teachers in the reserve were in it five years earlier. These teachers are the most likely to be problematic, since their history suggests that no principal has been willing to hire them, or that they have actively avoided getting a permanent assignment. Among this group, principals say, are teachers who are incompetent or mentally unstable.

“So many of them, in my opinion, weren’t capable of leading a classroom again, or ever were,” said Matt Williams, the founding principal of a small high school, Bronx Design and Construction Academy, who left the department in 2014.

To identify teachers from the reserve with troubling histories, The New York Times cross-referenced two sets of records: the Education Department’s Excessed Staff Selection System, which lists available staff and openings in the system, and arbitrators’ decisions in disciplinary cases, which are available from the New York State Education Department.

Among the teachers available is a science teacher who, in her last permanent job, did not bother to regularly enter students’ grades, according to the arbitrator’s decision. She gave one student in her earth science class a grade of 83 percent, despite the fact that the girl had never come to school. Administrators who observed her classes often found students talking, listening to music on their headphones, or even asleep.

Also in the pool: a special-education teacher said to have disciplined autistic students by making them stand for 45 minutes to an hour; leaning on them to prevent them from getting out of their seats, and making them hold their breakfast trays for 10 minutes before allowing them to eat. An arbitrator wrote that she was “unquestionably guilty of corporal punishment,” yet let her go with a fine and training.

Randy Asher, who is heading the effort for the Education Department, declined to discuss specific cases. He said that all teachers in the reserve would be considered in filling vacancies, though he said it was “less likely” that those with multiple poor ratings or histories of corporal punishment would be placed.

“We’ll look at it case-by-case,” he said. He added that, in any event, the teachers were already in schools, just for shorter, temporary assignments. (A handful of teachers charged with inappropriate relationships with students or actions of a sexual nature, whom arbitrators declined to terminate, remain assigned away from classrooms and are not in the reserve.)

Some observers say that, while the cost of the reserve is untenable, the city should find a better solution.

“As far as what would have been the best thing for the kids in New York City schools, it would have been to find a way to end the A.T.R. without placing those teachers in schools,” said Marcus A. Winters, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Chicago and Washington, for instance, have put limits of roughly a year on how long a teacher without a permanent assignment can collect a paycheck.

“It’s one of those things that you would hope that even the union would understand — that if you’ve been in the A.T.R. for five years or so, it’s probably time to move on,” Mr. Winters said. As for the de Blasio administration, which is generally seen as close to the teachers’ union, he said, “I don’t know if they were aggressive enough to do it or not.”

Adam Ross, the general counsel for the teachers’ union, the United Federation of Teachers, said, “If an arbitrator finds, upon examining all the facts, that termination is not warranted, it is management’s responsibility to use the employee in question.”

A Question of Energy

Sara Dingledy, the former principal of Westchester Square Academy, a small high school in the Bronx, said that while about half of the reserve teachers who rotated through her school were capable and eager to be hired, “I had a whole bunch of people in who obviously had no interest in getting a job, who wanted to know where the staff room was so they could sit down, who just wanted to surf the computer all day.”

Mr. Blake said that he had applied for a number of jobs, and blamed his trouble in finding a permanent position on his salary. Both he and Ms. Alterescu were at the top teacher pay scale of $113,762 last year.

“It’s a matter of economics,” he said.

Mr. Blake said that he went on roughly two interviews a year, mostly for positions as a cluster teacher — an elementary-level teacher who teaches a subject like science or art to groups of students throughout the day. He said that at his age — about 60 — he didn’t think he would succeed as a regular classroom teacher, who is with the same group of students all day long and is responsible for keeping records on their academic progress and other matters.

“You basically have to be like Bartleby the Scrivener there to keep up with all the logs you have to do for 30 students,” he said of the paperwork.

The department moved to fire Mr. Blake in 2009. His supervisors at Public School 157, the Grove Hill School, in the Bronx, described his lessons as ineffective and his classroom management as poor.

The case was heard before an arbitrator, a process dictated by state law and the teachers’ union contract. The arbitrator, Alan Berg, wrote in his decision that Mr. Blake “appears to lack the energy and enthusiasm necessary to be a truly good teacher,” but imposed a fine rather than firing him. “Being boring alone does not warrant termination,” Mr. Berg said.

Ms. Alterescu worked at Junior High School 189, the Daniel Carter Beard School, in Queens, until 2010. She was twice disciplined for excessive absenteeism or lateness. While she was assigned to a reassignment center, or “rubber room,” in June 2010, she sought and received a doctor’s note saying that she was unable to work, then flew to Chicago for a family reunion, claiming sick time for the two days of work she missed.

The next year, after she had been assigned to the reserve, she was arrested and received desk appearance tickets on two occasions, for altercations with her mother and sister. She did not immediately report the arrests to the department. The department sought to remove her, but an arbitrator, citing her long tenure, imposed a fine instead. Ms. Alterescu said in an interview that she believed the principal of J.H.S. 189 disliked her and that she did not immediately report the desk appearance tickets because she did not think they were arrests. She said the charges in both cases were ultimately dismissed.

Mr. Williams, the former Bronx principal, who is now the vice president of education at Goodwill Central Texas, said that, while principals would no doubt be frustrated to have ineffective teachers forced on them, they weren’t the only ones who would be unhappy.

“No one dislikes a lazy or not-good teacher more than a good teacher,” he said.

In New York City students, parents and school staff, especially teachers, have protested the lack of appropriate discipline in NYC schools for many years. See:

Fatal Stabbing Highlights Persistent Problems at Bronx Middle School (2014)and,Safety Last: New York City's Public Schools Are More Dangerous Than Ever (2016):The key findings of Safety Last are:" Alarming Spike in Violence in City Schools: The number of violent incidents in city schools rose sharply last year, under Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Farina's first full year managing the Department of Education -- from 12,978 in 2013-14 to 15,934 in 2014-15, a disturbing 23 percent increase; School Violence Index at Recorded High: New York City's School Violence Index (SVI) rose by 22 percent in 2014-5, the highest level recorded. New York State uses the SVI to determine which schools are "persistently dangerous," as required by federal law. The School Violence Index is a ratio of violent incidents to enrollment in a school and is determined by the number of incidents, the seriousness of the incidents, and the school's enrollment; Data Suggests de Blasio Administration is Misleading Public: Data suggests that Mayor de Blasio's assertion that crime in city schools is down 29 percent since 2011-12, most recently invoked during his State of the City this month, is at best an incomplete picture. There were more than twice as many "assaults with physical injur[ies]" reported by city schools to the State Education Department than total number of crimes under Mayor de Blasio's calculations; Students at Grave Risk in City Schools: The alarming spike in violence in city schools makes it difficult for students to learn and leaves students in serious risk of danger and bodily harm: A violent incident occurs in district schools every 4.5 minutes; A weapon is recovered in district schools once every 28.4 minutes; Few students are protected: 93% of the city's district school students attend schools where a violent incident has occurred over the past year; In the five months since the 2015-2016 school year began, 42 weapons have been confiscated from 36 elementary schools across the city."

No one is doing anything about it, except covering it up. The case of Eileen Ghastin is a case which shows the New York City Department of Education policy of not giving violent students the appropriate help and guidance they need. The boy who told Ms. Ghastin that he was a boxer and was going to beat her up was given a short suspension and when he returned to school, he broke a window in anger. He needs help, not discipline.

I see the "all students are little angels" policy at work in 3020-a charges, where the NYC Department of Education always blames the teacher: a fight between two or more students shows a lack of classroom management; intervention by a teacher to stop a fight is corporal punishment and misconduct by the teacher; telling a student to stop hurting other students is charged as verbal abuse in 3020-a Specifications, etc.. In Eileen's case, she tried to stop the student from beating her up by telling him she was going to "kill him". She saw that she needed to do something to stop him, and believed that this was the only way. Of course she did not mean it. The arbitrator gave her a fine because he was convinced that the student was embarrassed by the media coverage of the event in the NYPOST, even though the newspaper did not name him. See:

In 2010, two years before the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown Connecticut, I received a telephone call from an anxious parent whose children had attended the school, and she begged me to help her get services for special needs students in Newtown before somebody went "postal" and people would be harmed. I made many calls to the school board and policymakers. All requests fell into a black hole.But we know that special education services are not being supplied properly, and the NYC Department of Education is covering this up too. See:

What the NYC DOE needs to do is hire a General Counsel who can set up an Office of Accountability and Guidance. This office will be given the responsibility of providing each event with a team to find out who did what, and how. I suggest disbanding the Office of Special Investigations and the Office of Equal Opportunity, as wholly-owned agencies of the NYC DOE and compromised by their allegiance to the bias ingrained in the Department against holding the true culprits accountable for anything. Discipline is not always the answer. There is no set standard for what kind of suspension will "teach him/her a lesson to not harm someone" again.

A bright and popular 15-year-old Bronx boy was stabbed last month in one of the places he loved most — school.

New York Times, By JAN RANSOM, OCT. 12, 2017

The pint-size youngster with an oversized backpack stood on the corner of Mapes Avenue several feet from home, and for a moment contemplated crossing the street. He knew he wasn’t supposed to leave home alone, but he wanted to go to school just like his older brother though he was not old enough, his mother recounted.

Even as a baby, Matthew McCree would cry to go to school, said his mother Louna Dennis. “I’ve never met a kid who just loved school.”

That love of school never faltered. The 15-year-old was a bright and popular student at the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation in the Bronx, said his parents, classmates and a former teacher’s assistant. Then, nearly three weeks into the start of a new school year, he was killed during history class when the police say a classmate plunged a knife into his chest and back. That student, Abel Cedeno, 18, is also accused of seriously injuring Mr. McCree’s friend, Ariane Laboy, 16, who tried to step in. Mr. Cedeno has been charged with murder.

“Nothing will ever be the same,” Ms. Dennis, 34, said through tears during an interview at her attorney’s office in Brooklyn. “Matthew was a light; he lights up everybody.”

The effervescent teenager had big dreams. Standing at 5-foot-10, 156 pounds, Mr. McCree, a junior, wanted to attend Fordham University and become a professional basketball player. If that didn’t pan out, he said he planned to join the Marines, Ms. Dennis said.

His stepfather, Kyle Victor Sr., 36, said he taught Mr. McCree how to play basketball. He was a fast learner, said Mr. Victor, who raised him since he was 6. The teenager played basketball with friends at Crotona Park and in the courtyard behind his building. His school did not have a basketball team.

Mr. McCree grew up in a two-bedroom apartment at Mapes Court, two six-story brick buildings a half a mile from the Bronx Zoo.

He lived with his mother; brother, Kevon Dennis, 17; and his sister, Kayla Dennis, 4. His stepbrother, Kyle Victor Jr., 10, was always eager to visit on weekends. The family had a cat named Elmo, and a Maltese named Baby.

Mr. McCree shared a small room with his older brother, which after his death bore little sign of him. Ms. Dennis said she and her older son disposed of most of his belongings because they reminded them that Matthew was gone. All that remained was an unfinished mural that read: “Money Matt” and “You’ll Live Forever.”

“He had the most annoying laugh ever,” Mr. Dennis said with a slight smile in the courtyard. Mr. Dennis, who attended Wildlife for middle school and then left for a different high school, sat near a growing memorial of blue and white candles, enlarged photos of his brother, a basketball and countless hand-scrawled messages, including one that read: “No student should be scared to walk the halls.”

Ms. Dennis said Wildlife had a better reputation when her eldest son attended. The principal was active, accessible and frequently accompanied students on school trips. The school also had a program in which staff walked students home, creating a bond, but the program ended.

“Nobody had the kids under control,” Mr. Dennis said. “Every day the cops were outside. It just got bad.”

The school administration and the education department declined to comment.

Mr. Cedeno told police that his peers had been bullying him about his perceived sexual orientation, though Mr. McCree and Mr. Laboy had never been in contact with him before that day. Police said Mr. Cedeno began carrying a knife to school.

A grand jury is hearing from witnesses about the stabbing on Sept. 27, according to the district attorney’s office and Sanford Rubenstein, Ms. Dennis’ attorney. Mr. Rubenstein said the family will not take legal action until after Mr. McCree’s funeral. A wake for Mr. McCree will be on Friday evening at the Castle Hill Funeral Parlor in the Bronx. His funeral is at 7 a.m. on Saturday. He will be buried in Canarsie Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Ms. Dennis and Mr. McCree’s friends said he never mentioned Mr. Cedeno. Relatives and classmates said that Mr. McCree was not a bully.

Mr. McCree’s neighbor, Doreen Jimenez, 33, whom he called his “Spanish mom,” said that she has been married to a woman for three years and that the teenager never judged her. She said Mr. McCree was often at her house for dinner, or hanging out with her three daughters who were close friends of his.

A longtime friend of Mr. McCree’s, Hensehk Bernardez, 16, who transferred out of Wildlife in the ninth grade, said Mr. Cedeno “was a socially awkward kid,” and that “Matthew would never bully a gay person; he knew better than that.”

BRONX — The high school where two students were stabbed this week — one fatally — was seething with violence and intimidation prior to the deadly attack, according to parents and school safety data.

School safety officials and many parents from the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation wondered why the building did not have metal detectors or more security before Abel Cedeno stabbed two classmates during a Wednesday morning history class

Cedeno — an 18-year-old who had been bullied and frequently subjected to racial and homophobic taunts, according to his family — fatally stabbed Matthew McCree, 15, and critically injured a 16-year-old after they threw pencils at him.

Friends said Cedeno bought the 3-inch knife he used in the stabbing nearly two weeks ago off of Amazon and sent videos to them showing him opening the switchblade.

The West Farms high school had a history of bullying and violent incidents that were well above the average of others schools citywide, city Department of Education data shows.

Parents said the concerns they shared about safety and other bullying incidents with Principal Astrid Jacobo fell on deaf ears, while security agents said they had previously asked for metal detectors at the building, which is shared with P.S. 67.

"The union has been stressing to the de Blasio Administration that this school needs metal detectors, and we have gotten nothing but pushback from the administration,” said Gregory Floyd, president of the School Safety Officers union, Teamsters Local 237. “There's a lack of disciplinary enforcement at the school, and the students can sense it."

Uneek Valentin, whose son attends the high school, said her 17-year-old had been bullied there, but that his tormentor was not suspended after she spoke to the principal about the situation.

“[I talked] to the principal last year about the fighting, but nothing came of it,” she said.

Eventually, her son beat his bully with a belt, Valentin admitted.

Jacobo, who has been the head of the school for nearly three years, did not immediately respond to calls for comment.

The school building — which parents said has two safety agents handling roughly 1,200 students — saw two major crimes during the 2015-'16 school year, according to city Department of Education data.

That was nearly four times the citywide average of 0.57 major crimes for the same size school, the data show.

State education data for that school year, which is the most recent available, also showed that the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation had a higher-than-average number of incidents.

There were three sex offenses and two assaults, including one involving a weapon, at the school last year, the data shows. The school also had nine incidents of intimidation, harassment or bullying, two of which involved weapons.

Out of 1,800 traditional public and charter schools citywide, only 40 reported more than two bullying incidents with weapons, according to the data.

Though the administration touted last school year as the safest on record — with the de Blasio administration discussing the possibility of reducing the number of schools with metal detectors — the experience of students at Wildlife Conservation reveals a different story.

Many students reported feeling unsafe there, according to the annual Department of Education survey that polls the school community.

Only 55 percent of kids last year said they felt safe in hallways, cafeteria, bathrooms and locker rooms. That was down significantly from the year before, when 75 percent of kids said they felt safe. Only 47 percent of students said they felt safe just outside the building.

Parents said their children felt the school was a dangerous place.

"These kids are getting beat up and jump[ed] right outside of school. These things [are] happening often,” said Jeannette Martinz, 47, whose ninth- and 12th-graders attend the school. “The principal and staff are covering [what’s] going on in the school.”

There were also other red flags about the school’s principal.

Only 44 percent of the teachers said they trusted the principal — 37 percent less than the citywide average, the DOE survey said. Only 43 percent of teachers agreed that the principal knew what was going on in the classrooms.

Not everyone believes the answer to making the school safer is to bring in metal detectors.

Of the roughly 3 million scans conducted during the first two months of last school year across 200 schools that have permanent or temporary metal detectors, only a small number of items were confiscated — including 73 knives, 21 boxcutters, three BB guns and an unloaded handgun, Pro Publica reported.

NYPD school-safety chief Brian Conroy noted Thursday that safety agents last year recovered more weapons than ever, but that most were not found through scanning.

"We didn't see any reasons prior to having scanning in that school," Conroy said at a press conference Thursday.

Members of the Urban Youth Collaborative, a youth-led coalition that has focused on reforming overly punitive discipline that disproportionately affects people of color, called for mental health supports instead.

“The default response following tragic incidents involving young people in communities of color has been to prioritize policing and incarceration,” read a joint statement from the Collaborative's Roberto Cabanas and Bryan Aju.

“Research shows the most promising strategies for sustaining safe and supportive school communities is building strong relationships between students and staff through the use of restorative practices and increasing the number of guidance counselors, social workers, and trained mental health support staff," they continued.

Instead, they called for "community-building circles" to prevent bullying and violence, as well as "healing circles" to help students processing trauma in moments of tragedy.

"Metal detectors will not prevent violent fights in our schools," the group said in a statement. "We know that anything can be made into a weapon if a student is feeling trapped and desperate, but if our schools are safe, affirming, and supportive environments for young people, we can eliminate violence in our schools altogether."

It was unclear whether Cedeno reached out to a counselor or other staff members at his school.

NYPD officials said Cedeno had been harassed by other individuals at the start of school, though not by the two teens involved in Wednesday's stabbing. While police said he had not reached out to anyone at Wildlife Conservation about the situation, his family believes the school was aware of his bullies and did nothing to stop them.

"I have instructed my team to conduct a thorough investigation on all issues, and this is underway," Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña said in a statement. "We have additional safety measures and grief counselors in place and will continue to support the school community."

With reporting by Clifford Michel

The mother of a New York City public school student, a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit, spoke about her son’s mistreatment outside the Education Department’s headquarters on Thursday.

A group of public school families and a pro-charter advocacy group filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court this week alleging that the atmosphere at New York City public schools was depriving students of their right to receive an education free of violence, bullying and harassment.

The class-action suit, filed on Wednesday in New York’s Eastern District against the New York City Education Department and its chancellor, Carmen Fariña, claims that violence in schools is increasing, and that it is often underreported. The suit also says that school violence disproportionately affects certain groups of students, like those who are black, Hispanic, gay, bisexual or transgender.

The suit, which claims the Education Department has failed “to address and remediate in-school violence in New York City’s public schools,” was filed by 11 students and their families. They were joined by Families for Excellent Schools, a pro-charter advocacy group that has been a fierce and frequent critic of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s education policies.

The group’s chief executive, Jeremiah Kittredge, held a news conference on Thursday morning in front of the Education Department’s headquarters in Manhattan, to encourage other public school parents to join the suit.

The group’s picture of violence in the city’s schools directly counters Mr. de Blasio’s. In a statement, the mayor said he viewed “each incidence as obviously troubling,” but challenged the group’s facts, saying that “this year to date, the major crime in our schools is down 14.29 percent and other crimes down 6.77 percent.”

Testimonials From Some of Our Clients

“Dear Betsy,
I am forever indebted to you, Betsy, for your expert advice throughout a horrific ordeal. You worked tirelessly to prove my innocence in a 3020a proceeding that was instigated by a corrupt school district and fueled by lies. My proceedings ended with my complete exoneration, my record expunged and my immediate return to the classroom. We didn’t even need to file an appeal! Thank you, Betsy. I am now eligible to retire and enjoy the benefits you helped me to protect. God bless you and the work you do protecting the innocent
Maria G;

Alexandra F.

Dear Betsy,

I just wanted to reach out and say thank you for CONSTANTLY being there for me throughout such a tumultuous time in my life. I have been battling severe harassment at my place of work for months now, and you have advised me through every single second of it. I would not have had the strength or confidence to battle such an evil administration without your help. You have answered my phone calls from 7AM through nearly midnight with any and all of my concerns. I have called you countless times to just vent, or even cry, and you have been there with open arms to pivot my negative anticipations into positive advocacy. You have gone above and beyond your line of duty to help me, and for that, I can never repay you. You have changed the outcome of my life, and led me to justice. More importantly, you have led me to happiness again, for which I am eternally grateful. As I am getting older, I am realizing that there are many bad people in this world, but you are TRULY one of the good ones. When one finds a great person in life with their true best interest at heart, they should hold onto that and take their word as bond. My last statement truly defines you, an expert in what you do, as well as a 24 hour support system. You are amazing Betsy, and my life would truly not be the same if you had not stepped into it!!!!!

Thank you again for EVERYTHING you have done for me. Your advisement and care will be carried in my heart for the rest of my life.

Alexandra F.

Tollyne D.

After 18 years of service, the general consensus as a union member is that you cannot trust people and you have to be extremely careful who you talk to. I was brought up being told that I should be sure that the person I am speaking to is knowledgeable and to be TRUSTED, and Betsy Combier is such a person. She consistently proves that she is trustworthy, very knowledgeable and caring, time and time again.

Tollyne D.

David P.

To whom this may concern,
I want to recommend Betsy Combier as the best person you could have in your corner. From the first day I met Betsy I felt secure. I had the misfortune of having to go through a 3020a hearing and with help of Ms. Combier my job was secure, I don’t know where I would be without Betsy’s help and support. She is still assisting me with my federal case. I could not recommend Betsy any higher, she is a person of her word, and her expertise is important and necessary for everyone without any problem.
David P.

Jason R.

I met Betsy Combier approximately about 5 years ago, as a result of a recommendation from a colleague. Since then she has been an advocate of mine ever since, and has worked above and beyond my expectation. Betsy fights against the wrongdoing of public education officials in New York City. Throughout the extremely difficult arbitration, Betsy fought for my unalienable rights, even though my former principal did everything in her power to tarnish my name and damage my career.
Betsy is not an attorney yet she has the experience and knowledge that is above and beyond that of an attorney and follows through on all issues. She is truly an angel from heaven above, and a quality public defender.

Laura B.

I was charged with a 3020A in October 2016 after receiving three developing ratings in a row. I called numerous law firms as well as my union. Most people who I talked to said that I should settle because I was fighting a losing battle. A lawyer told me that anyone that says you can win a 3020A is a liar. I heard about Betsy from a teacher placed in my building who was going through the 3020A process. I hired Betsy and one of the Attorneys who works with her and her company, and won my case! Betsy saved my job and saved my life because she was emotionally supportive at a time when I needed it the most. Betsy goes above and beyond for her clients. She is readily available day and night for her clients. Betsy’s knowledge of education law is exceptional and she was a great help to my attorney. Betsy is relentless and fights hard for her clients.

ADVOCATZ

Contact me with a concern or issue

I assist anyone who needs help, so email me your problem to start the ball rolling! I am a teacher/parent advocate, and I am the editor/writer for this blog and the website parentadvocates.org. I also write about court corruption on my blog "NYC Court Corruption". I am interested in random injustice and the criminalizing of innocent people. If you want to chat you may email me at: betsy.combier@gmail.com and I'm on twitter and have a facebook page too. I'm not an attorney and do not give legal advice.

If you want to talk with me about your 3020-a charges, I consult and go over your case without charge. No fee.

And, in response to the lies of certain individuals who resent my work, the truth is that all conversations are confidential and I do not tape secretly.

Betsy Combier

My Thoughts and Raison d'etre

This blog is about the denial of Constitutional rights by the Mayor, the New York City Department of Education and the Chancellor, New York State and Federal Courts, New York State legislature, and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), as well as PACs and all parties participating in the business of public school education in New York City, to harm and in neglect of parents, children, and staff of public schools in the five boroughs. These thoughts are not simply mindless conclusions reached out of thin air, but a result of 14 years of research into the NYC DOE and the Courts as a reporter and paralegal.
I am an advocate of Unions and union rights, public schools and charters, and learning online as well as outside of the classroom. I cannot and do not support anyone, whether they be union management, government, private members of the political or legal system, or simply retired teachers with an agenda, if he or she tramples, discards, or rebuffs anyone's individual civil rights. As a reporter, journalist, advocate, researcher and paralegal, I have created this blog to inform the public about my experience working for the UFT and being the parent of four daughters who went through the public school system in NYC, as well as examine issues that flow from the massive denial of due process rights that I saw and have documented. The two most important points you should remember: first, everyone at the New York City Board/Department of Education and all Union bigs are motivated by power and money, and looking good. If anyone dares to blow the whistle on these racketeers, retaliation follows, so be a strategist; second, I am not an Attorney and nothing I write or say is legal advice, simply my thoughts. Take 'em or leave 'em.
Betsy Combier, Editor
NYC Rubber Room Reporter
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com
New York Court Corruption
http://newyorkcourtcorruption.blogspot.com
Parentadvocates.org
http://www.parentadvocates.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/betsy.combier
Twitter: http://twitter.com/BetsyCombier
The NYC Public Voice
http://nycpublicvoice.blogspot.com/betsy.combier@gmail.com
Lawline July 27, 2011
http://www.teachem.com/lawlinetv/learn/lawline-tv-teachers-unions-the-last-in-first-out-rule/

Principal Anne Seifullah changes her image so that she can keep her job amidst sexting and trysts in the school, Robert Wagner Secondary Sch...

Google + Rubber Room Community

FAITH

When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly. Patrick Overton

Truth Seeks Light - Lies Seek Shadows

sayin like it is

Actions Have Consequences

Writing as Music

Rubber Room teachers wish me a happy birthday (2006)

"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all."

- Aristotle

Important Numbers

Amy Arundel (ATR Point Person) 212-510-6468

UFT www.uft.org

OPI (Problem Code) 1-718-935-2666

UFT Certification Services 1-212-420-1830

Teachers REtirement System 1-888-869-2877

Mandated Reporters 1-800-635-1522

Staten Island UFT 1-718-605-1400

Brooklyn UFT 1-718-852-4900

Bronx UFT 1-718-379-6200

Manhattan UFT 1-212-598-6800

Queens UFT 1-718-275-4400

Rubber Room Satire

The Labor Movement

The Teaching Equation

We Can Work Out Our Differences

The E-Accountability Foundation

The E-Accountability Foundation brings you this blog which highlights issues that have or should be read by people interested in civil rights, and accountability. The E-Accountability Foundation is a 501(C)3 organization that holds people accountable for their actions online and, through the internet, seeks to bring justice to anyone who has been harmed without reason. We give the'A for Accountability' Awardto those who are willing to blow the whistle on unjust, misleading, or false actions and claims of the politico-educational complex in order to bring about educational reform in favor of children of all races, intellectual ability and economic status.

AddThis

Performance Management - Office of Labor Relations

From Betsy Combier

The NYC Office of Labor Relations, with the support of the UFT, has issued to principals a document called"Performance Management" on how to get rid of an incompetent teacher. Who is an "incompetent teacher"? Anyone the NYC Department of Education wants to remove from the system because he/she is too senior (makes too much money), is disabled (and therefore cannot be deemed factory-perfect) and/or is other impaired (is a whistleblower, cannot be intimidated, is ethnically challenged - not the 'right' race, etc).

Candace R. McLaren

Director, Office of Special Investigations (OSI)

Follow by Email

Polo Colon

"Rubber Room"

(1) a space where a worker subject to a disciplinary hearing or other administrative action waits and does no work; generally, a place or personal mind-set of isolation.(2) a literal reference to a padded cell, which is, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, “a room in a psychiatric hospital with padded walls to prevent violent patients from injuring themselves.”from Double-Tongued Dictionary http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/rubber_room/

"Rubberization"

The word "rubberization" is a new word that is used to describe the process of assigning and paying people to sit and do nothing in a drab room away from their place of employment while their employers make up charges that allege sexual or corporal misconduct without any facts upon which to base the allegation on.

Email Subscriptions powered by FeedBlitz

Theresa Europe, NYC BOE ATU Director

Robin Greenfield

Deputy Counsel to the NYC DOE

UFT Pres. Mike Mulgrew and NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg

UFT umbrella pals

New York State Supreme Court Judge Manuel Mendez

ATR CONNECT

Tenured Teachers who are found to be guilty of misconduct or incompetency at 3020-a but are not terminated, who have blown the whistle on the misconduct of politically favored NYC Department of Education employees, and/or who are simply disliked for any reason can suddenly find themselves in the ATR ("Absent Teacher Reserve") pool - employees without rights or voices, and without chapter leader union representation.

This new group of people are the "new" rubber roomers without representation at the UFT and denied the protection of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, because basically they have been pushed out of their jobs unfairly and under color of law by Mayor Bloomberg and the Chief Executives of the Department of Education who call themselves "Chancellors", "Network Leaders", "Superintendents", etc., consistently without any facts or evidence to support the false claims.

A group of teachers who are, or were, made into ATRs, ATR Polo Colon, and I, Betsy Combier, an advocate for transparency and labor/employment rights, have joined together to expose the denial of due process, civil and human rights by chiefs of the NYC Department of Education (NYC DOE), certain arbitrators at 3020-a, leaders of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the "investigators" -agents who work for the Special Commissioner of Investigation (SCI), Office of Special Investigation (OSI), and the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) - and the Attorneys who work for the New York United Teachers (NYSUT), and the New York Law Department (Corporation Counsel).

In order to protect the safety of those who join this group to promote an end to the "Rubberization" process described on this blog since 2007, names of those who tell their stories will, for now, remain anonymous if the person so desires, and Polo and I will be the gatekeepers. So if you are an ATR, or know a story involving an ATR or someone re-assigned or about to go into a 3020-a, please use the email address advocatz77@gmail.com and give us your contact information. We will protect your anonymity and hold onto your privacy.

Betsy Combier and Polo Colon, Editors

FAITH When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly.

Patrick Overton

We have forty million reasons for failure but not a single excuse.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

The Re-Assignment Overview by Betsy Combier

The New York City Board of Education decided in 2002 to rid the public school system of staff who interfered with their takeover and control. The criteria for a "good teacher" is now, more often than not, a "silent teacher", a person who never asks questions, is younger than 40, is making a salary below $50,000, does not care about kids and what they learn, or whether or not money (books, supplies, equipment, etc) is missing. When a teacher or staff member of a school dares to do the right thing and speaks out about wrong-doing - this person is often called a "whistleblower" or "flamethrower" - or, simply is not liked for any reason by the Principal/NYC personnel, suddenly he/she is accused of something by somebody ("given a label of "A", "B", "C", and so on) and whisked away to a drab room called a temporary re-assignment center or "rubber room". Members of the offices of the Special Commissioner of Investigation or the Office of Special Investigations then start work on building a case against the person to justify their being thrown in prison, declared "unfit for duty", or, as Mr. Joel Klein has said, characterized as "guilty of sexual activities and corporal punishment" against the children of New York City.The stories of the people I have met who sit every day in the 8 rubber rooms of NYC prove to me that Mr. Klein is very wrong about his assessment, and this blog is created to prove it to you.

Puppy Snooze

US Department of Labor ELAWS

Aeri Pang, Gotcha Squad Attorney

Attorney Pang, red dress, now chief Attorney For New York State Supreme Court Judge Cynthia Kern

New York State Supreme Court Judge Cynthia Kern

NYC EdStats You Can Use

$12.5 billion: Annual New York City Department of Education (DOE) budget (2002)

$21 billion: Annual New York City DOE budget (2009)
1,719: Number officials employed by the DOE central administration in June 2002

2,442: Number of officials employed by the central administration as of November 2008

2: Number of DOE officials earning more than $180,000 per year in 2004.

22: Number of DOE officials earning more than $180,000 per year in 2007.

5: Number of DOE public relations staffers in 2003.

23: Number of DOE public relations staffers in 2008.

944: Number of contracts approved by DOE in 2008, at a total cost of $1.9 billion.

20: Percentage of contracts that exceeded estimated cost by at least 25 percent.

$67.5 million: Annual budget of Project Arts, a decade-old program that was the sole source of dedicated funding for arts education. It was eliminated in 2007.

86: Percentage of principals who said in a 2008 poll that they were unable to provide a quality education because of excessive class sizes in their schools.

100,000: Number of seats DOE plans to provide for charter school students by 2012.

25,000: Number of seats DOE plans to build under 2010 to 2014 capital plan.

66,895: Number of K-3 school-children in classes of 25 or more during the 2008-09 school year.

15,440: Average number of seats per year built during the last six years of the Rudolph Giuliani administration.

10,895: Average number of seats per year built during the first six years of the Bloomberg administration.

27.2: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2001-02 who were Black.

14.1: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2006-07 who were Black.

53.3: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2001-02 who were white.

65.5: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2006-07 who were white.

76: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Latino students in 8th grade English Language Arts (ELA) in 2003.

75: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic students in 8th grade ELA in 2008.

77: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic 8th graders in math in 2003.

81: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic 8th graders in math in 2008.

54: Percentage of New York City public school parents who disapproved of Mayor Bloomberg’s handling of education, according to a March 2009 Quinnipiac poll.

Sources: New York City Council, New York City Comptroller’s Office, New York Daily News, New York Post, Eduwonkette, Quinnipiac Institute, Black Educator, Class Size Matters, New York City Schools Under Bloomberg and Klein.

Betsy Combier and NYSUT lawyer Chris Callagy

The New York City Whistle Award

NYC Whistlers, Winners of the NYC Whistle Award

...are those individuals in New York City who are willing to whistleblow unjust, misleading, or false actions and claims of the politico-educational complex in order to bring about educational reform in favor of children of all races, intellectual ability and economic status. Whistlers ask questions that need to be asked, such as "where is the money?" and "Why does it have to be this way?" and they never give up.

These people have withstood adversity and have held those who seem not to believe in honesty, integrity and compassion accountable for their actions.

Congratulations, and keep up the good work!

Betsy Combier

Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon

Condon "qualified" for his current post after Bloomberg lowered standards; who will leash him?

A great teacher

After being interviewed by the school administration, the prospective teacher said: 'Let me see if I've got this right.

'You want me to go into that room with all those kids, correct their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse, monitor their dress habits, censor their T-shirt messages, and instill in them a love for learning.

'You want me to check their backpacks for weapons, wage war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, and raise their sense of self esteem and personal pride.

'You want me to teach them patriotism and good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, and how to register to vote, balance a checkbook, and apply for a job 'You want me to check their heads for lice, recognize signs of antisocial behavior, and make sure that they all pass the final exams.

'You also want me to provide them with an equal education regardless of their handicaps, and communicate regularly with their parents in English, Spanish or any other language, by letter, telephone, newsletter, and report card.

'You want me to do all this with a piece of chalk, a blackboard, a bulletinboard, a few books, a big smile, and a starting salary that qualifies me for food stamps. 'You want me to do all this and then you tell me. . . I CAN'T PRAY?

NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly

Joel Klein's famous statement about rubber room teachers and staff

On November 27, 2006, temporarily re-assigned teacher (TRT) Polo Colon asked Joel Klein, the "pretend" Chancellor of the NYC public school system, if he had voted to terminate teachers at the secret Executive Session held just before the public meeting of the Panel For Educational Policy.Mr. Klein answered,"We did not vote to terminate you. We did vote to terminate a teacher in executive Session...in fact, we voted to terminate two teachers. It's perfectly consistent with the law.Many teachers have been charged with sexual activities and some are charged with corporal punishment...I have no interest in removing people who are qualified to teach, I can assure you, because I dont get any return...and in fact, I have complained publicly about how long this process drags out. But our first concern will always be and, as a former lawyer and somebody who clerked on the United States Supreme Court I will tell you, there is no violation of due process whatsoever..."- extracted from the audiotape of the PEP meeting bought by Betsy Combier after filing a FOIL request to the NYC BOE

Rally November 2008 at Tweed

November 26, 2007 Candelight Vigil

Thousands of teachers and school staff members rally at Tweed

A Review of Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools by Betsy Combier

Lydia Segal's book puts the NYC, Chicago, and California Departments of Education on notice....we who have read this book know more about how the system is not there for our kids than "you" want us to know. Lydia Segal's book Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools changes the public school reform movement forever. We can no longer assume that more money allocated to our schools will "fix" the disaster that is our public school system.

Lydia Segal draws on her 10 years of undercover investigation and research in over five urban school districts, including the three largest, New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and the two most decentralized, Houston and Edmonton, Canada, to provide, in her new book Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools, the details of the corruption, theft, fraud, and patronage that has overrun our public school establishment for several decades. There is no question that anyone who is interested in school reform -this means anyone who pays taxes, is a parent or guardian of a child attending school and/or who works toward a goal of establishing an education system that puts children first - must read this book. Ms. Segal's research and information on the education establishment's 'dark' side outrages the reader, and incites us to demand change. Her book therefore, is much more than a book, it is a call to action. We cannot be bystanders any longer to the systemic abuse she so vividly describes, and we will never be able to listen in the same way ever again to school Principals, Superintendents, school custodians or district board members as they request more money "to help the children."

The book's detailed reports on the corruption and crime in our public schools, supported by 52 pages of interview notes, references and specific examples, provide irrefutable evidence that the current failures of our nation's public schools are not due to the lack of money but the impossibility of getting the money to the children who need it and for whom the money is allocated in the first place. Recent statistics show that students of all ages are not learning what they need to know, schools are overcome with violence, teachers are demoralized, and yet billions of dollars are literally shovelled into the system every year. The New York City school system receives more than $16 billion every year; Los Angeles, $7 billion; and Chicago, $3.6 billion. Where does this money go? We have all asked this question as we have walked through school hallways dodging the paint falling off the walls and ceilings, watching our children sitting on broken chairs, using bathrooms without running water or toilet paper, and struggling to achieve their personal best without the services and resources they are supposed to have. Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools is the first book ever to systematically examine school waste and corruption and how to fight it. Ms. Segal, an undercover school investigator turned law professor, documents where the money goes, how waste and fraud embedded in the operation of large school bureaucracies siphon money from classrooms, distort educational priorities, block initiatives, and what we can do to bring badly-needed change. She describes in detail how only a small percentage of the money allocated to students in our public schools actually gets used by them due to corruption and waste, and how city school systems scoring lowest on standardized tests tend to have the biggest criminal records and most payroll padding. Coding problems, the procurement process, compartmentalization and opacity of information leave administrators with only two options: good corruption (which ultimately helps the kids) and bad corruption (which never helps anyone but the perpetrator and his/her allies and accomplices). Indeed, the system fights those who try the good corruption route.

Ms. Segal argues that the problem is not usually bad people, but a bad system that focuses on process at the expense of results. Decades of rules and regulations along with layers of top-down supervision make it so hard to do business with school systems that they encourage the very fraud and waste they were designed to curb. She tells us about how the "godfathers" and "godmothers" (the school board members) obtain jobs for their "pieces" in order to protect the systemic waste and fraud from being dismantled or exposed. Fortunately, she writes, there are good people involved in the corruption as well who must violate the rules in order to get their jobs done. Nonetheless, absurdities abound: school systems following rules to save every penny spend thousands of dollars hunting down checks as small as $25; it takes so long to pay vendors for their work that some have to bribe school officials to move their checks along; caring Principals who want to fix leaky toilets may have to pay workers under the table because submitting a work order through the central office could, and often does, take years. Meanwhile, those who pilfer from classrooms get away with it because the pyramidal structure of large districts makes schools inherently difficult to oversee. What makes Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools a must-read is not only the fascinating - and depressing - details of the systemic wrong-doing but also Ms. Segal's suggestions for reform, based on the proven track records of school systems across North America that have successfully reduced waste and fraud and have pushed more resources into schools.

The pathology of the corruption suggests the remedy, Ms. Segal says, which is decentralization of power into the schools and the hands of the Principals. Distilling what successful school systems have done, Segal advocates new forms of oversight that do not clog up school systems and recommends giving principals more discretion over their school budgets as well as holding them accountable for job performance. She argues for "autonomy in exchange for performance accountability" as part of a bold, far-reaching plan for reclaiming our schools. Her conclusion is logical and convincing. Everyone who reads this book will find his or her perception of public school education changed forever. We cannot accept any longer that a generation of children has been abused by a system that is so full of greed and corruption without screaming "stop!" and "Your game is up!"

Segal reveals how systemic waste and fraud siphon millions of dollars from urban classrooms and shows how money is lost in systems that focus on process rather than on results, as well as how regulations established to curb waste and fraud provide perverse incentives for new forms of both. Anyone who is interested in school reform--this means anyone who pays taxes, is a parent or guardian of a child attending school, and/or who works toward a goal of establishing an education system that puts children first--must read this book. --

Lydia G. Segal is Associate Professor of Criminal Law and Public Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.